Earlier this week, Nickelodeon officially greenlit The Patrick Star Show, a new spinoff of the beloved classic animated series SpongeBob Squarepants.
The new show will be a family sitcom that centers around a young Patrick Star. The first season of The Patrick Star Show will consist of 13 episodes.
Bill Fagerbakke will continue to voice Patrick in the spinoff. He will be joined by new voice actors like Tom Wilson as Cecil Star, Cree Summer as Bunny Star, Jill Talley as Squidina Star, and Dana Snyder as GrandPat Star.
“Nickelodeon is diving deeper into Bikini Bottom to give fans a look at our lovable young adult Patrick Star and his entire family with a sitcom only he could imagine up,” Ramsey Naito, president of Nickelodeon Animation, said in a press release.
“This second original spinoff allows us to expand our reach, tell new stories and connect with our audience around the world who continue to love these characters.”
Not all fans of the long-running animated series were too pleased to hear that Patrick will be getting a spinoff. This news of a new show comes after Kamp Koral, the first SpongeBob Squarepants spinoff, premiered on Paramount Plus to controversial reception.
SpongeBob Squarepants creator Stephen Hillenburg, who passed away in 2018, did not want the show to have any spinoffs. In an exclusive interview with Television Business International, Hillenburg was asked about his stance on a SpongeBob spinoff featuring other characters.
“The show is about SpongeBob, he’s the core element, and it’s about how he relates to the other characters,” he responded. “Patrick by himself might be a bit too much. So I don’t see any spin-offs.”
A few months after Hillenberg's passing, Kamp Koral was announced. Many feel that Nickelodeon went against Hillenburg’s wishes in order to milk every penny out of the SpongeBob franchise.
Paul Tibbitt, who worked on the show for 18 years, expressed his feelings on the Kamp Koral spinoff on Twitter:
Caius Robertson created a petition urging Nickelodeon to cancel the Kamp Koral spinoff. He wrote, “Hillenburg touched the hearts of many people with his cartoon, which is unfortunately now being used as nothing more than a money machine for Nickelodeon and Viacom.”
“Kamp Koral is an insult to the love and care that Stephen put into the original show and characters,” he added. “To disregard his wishes and create this series only 6 months after his passing is nothing short of deplorable.”
The petition to cancel the remake currently has 5,789 signatures.
The Patrick Star Show is currently set to air first on Nickelodeon, and then become available to stream on Paramount Plus. The series is expected to premiere in the summer of 2021.